


History

by NotEvenThat



Series: Introspective Magnus Drabbles [4]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: A Version of Survivor's Guilt, F/M, Heavy Angst, M/M, Magnus Bane-centric, Magnus Can't Forgive Himself, POV Magnus Bane, Past Abuse, Past Character Death, Past manipulation, Slight fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-02
Updated: 2017-12-02
Packaged: 2019-02-09 15:49:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12891294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotEvenThat/pseuds/NotEvenThat
Summary: Even decades later, Magnus' mistakes haunt him.





	History

**Author's Note:**

> This is a completely rewritten version of something that I wrote a long time ago and then deleted because I didn't like it. Day one of Magnus Appreciation Month is 'history' and nothing comes to mind more than Magnus and Camille, when I think of Magnus' history. So, I decided to rewrite it.

The second that they hit the couch, Alexander was fast asleep. He stayed awake long enough to pull his heavy boots off, unclip the thigh holster that held all of his arrows and mumble one final, ‘I love you’ before he was gone.

Neither Alec nor Magnus had ever been the easiest of sleepers. They were both too conditioned by the treacherous world that they lived in. They both woke with the slightest of sounds, even knowing that Magnus’ wards kept them safe here in their home. There was barely a night that went by that one of them didn’t wake to the other whimpering from dreams that were all too possible and nightmares of things that might someday come to pass. More often than not, they would both wake and rise far too early or far too late to sip tea in the kitchen and mumble reassurances of the other being safe, for now, for tonight before stumbling back off to bed to try and sleep for a few more hours before the world called them to their duties.

Sleep had never been an easy thing for either of them. Of course, there were the nights, such as tonight, in which Alec came home so tired that he was practically asleep on his feet and there were the nights that Magnus had used so much magic that the second he felt himself pass through the wards and into the safety of Alec’s arms, he was unconscious.

Though, those nights never seemed to coincide. When Magnus was so tired that he could barely check if Alec was okay before falling asleep, Alec was wide awake. When Alec came home exhausted, Magnus was left awake with nothing to entertain him, other than his own thoughts.

He knew that he could wake Alexander and the other man wouldn't be mad at him for his selfish action, not even for a moment but Magnus couldn’t bring himself to do so. Alec was curled into his arms with his head buried in Magnus’ neck. Magnus could feel his warm breath brushing out against his skin every few moments. He could feel the rise and the fall of Alec’s chest as the man breathed evenly and he could feel his heartbeat, pounding so close to Magnus’ own, like a reminder of something safe.

If Alec drifted into a nightmare, Magnus would gladly wake him and pull him into this moment with him but now, with Alec’s breath coming evenly and his mouth twitching in a smile against Magnus’ skin, he couldn’t wake him, even if that meant that Magnus was forced to endure his thoughts alone.

Magnus could hear the cars far below the warmth of their loft. He could hear the wind being pushed aside as they raced far past the speed limit and he could see the light, slashing through the windows and lighting the wall behind them with every car that went by. He could hear people on the sidewalk below, laughing at words that Magnus couldn’t hear and probably wouldn’t have found meaning in, had he been able to.

Magnus could see the streetlights, shining through the curtains and if he turned his neck the smallest bit away from Alec, he could see the stars shining through the balcony doors, the very few that were visible on a night like this in a New York.

The air around them was cold and chilled. Magnus had left the windows open earlier, when the sun had warmed everything enough for that to be acceptable but now the sun had gone down and the autumn air was cold enough that if it hadn’t been for Alec curled around him and the soft blanket tucking them in, Magnus was sure he’d be freezing. He could fix it with a snap of his finger, if he truly wanted too but something kept him from doing so.

The cold reminded him of something, something that he would much rather shove into that dark corner of his mind and forget about entirely. The cold chill of the wind blowing through their home made him think of one thing and the smell of blood and decay that followed it was almost real enough that Magnus wondered if Alec would smell it, if he were awake.  

Autumn had always reminded Magnus of Camille. The cold chill that took over New York, the death and slow bleeding of decay that overtook everything, until there was nothing left. Camille wasn’t winter. Winter didn’t lie or deceive anyone about what it was. It appeared unapologetically. It left the world in a cold stagnant state but it awed everyone with it's beauty and wonder. Winter came unyieldingly but it held a promise of the future. Winter came and buried everything but gave promises the seasons to come.

Autumn didn’t give promises of anything but death. Autumn came slowly. It bleed into everything and turned the world sour. It ate away at the earth, leaf by leaf and petal by petal, rotting everything at such a slow pace that no one even noticed that it was happening until it was too late.

No matter how many years went by, Magnus didn’t think that there would ever be an Autumn in which he didn’t think of Camille Belcourt. Even if he left and vacationed someplace so far from here that the leaves didn’t fall and the earth didn’t cool, Magnus would still think of her. He would still close his eyes and see dull brown hues painted in blood.

Magnus rarely spoke of Camille without disdain. It was easier, now that everything was done to pretend that he had never loved her. To pretend that once she hadn’t meant the world to him. To pretend that so long ago, he hadn’t been willing to do anything for her, that he hadn’t been willing to do anything she asked, just to please her.

Everyone thought of Magnus as someone with ridged hard morals. Someone who stood for the good and just in the world, someone who refused to rest in morally gray area of life that so many people found themselves in. No one seemed to realized that something must have made him that way. No one questioned just why Magnus was so firm about what he believed in but if they had, if they had followed Magnus’ actions back to try and find the turning point, the inciting incident, they would have stopped dead at Camille.

The truth about Camille Belcourt and Magnus Bane was that he had been so absorbed in her, so completely tricked by her illusions, so lost in whatever spell she had used on him, that he would have been willing to burn the rest of the world, if she had asked him too.

He would have turned his back on everything that he believed in, he would have tossed every moral out the window and watched as destruction shook the globe, if it had meant that Camille would have been happy with him.

That was the truth that no one wanted to realized. Ragnor acted as if Camille had forced Magnus into every situation that he had found himself in. He acted like Magnus hadn’t had a choice in any of it or as if Magnus had been a child who hadn’t been accountable in any of it but they both knew that that wasn’t the truth. Magnus had a choice. He’d always had a choice and Ragnor would have rather pretended that he hadn’t than to admit that Magnus had decided to do what he did.

Magnus didn’t have that liberty. He couldn’t pretend as if he hadn’t been responsible for his actions. He alone held the weight of that truth and on nights like this, when Alec was fast asleep and Magnus had nothing to distract himself but the cold wind of New York at night, he was forced to think of it. Perhaps, that's why he kept the window open. Perhaps, that's why he refused to wake Alec or conjure himself a cup of tea or even a book to try and distract himself because deep down, Magnus knew that he deserved to suffer for what he had done.

Camille hadn’t forced Magnus to kill him. She hadn’t threatened him or found someway to bind Magnus to the action. She hadn’t even had to put in the effort and try to manipulate Magnus into doing it. She’d simply let it be know that if Magnus did it, she would be pleased and if he didn’t, she wouldn’t be. That had been enough. Somehow, that had been enough for Magnus to slip and kill someone who hadn’t been innocent, not by any means but that certainly hadn’t deserved to die.

Somehow, Camille had wound herself so far into Magnus’s head that that had been enough.

Years later, long after Magnus had broken away from Camille’s influence and started to think on his own again, he has asked her why exactly she had wanted Magnus to kill him so much. He asked her why she seemed so determined to get Magnus to slip and take a life that hadn’t been deserving of death and she had blinked and responded simply, “Well, you enjoyed it. Didn’t you?”

He had never done it again. He had never fallen so hard after that one time.

It hadn’t been the first time that Magnus had killed someone, not even close but it had been the first time that Magnus had killed someone, in complete control of his own power and completely unsure if he had deserved it or not.

A decision like that changes you. It shifts the structure of your life and even your own DNA to completely rewrite who you are as a person. You’re tainted after a decision like that. You’re flawed and corrupted in a way that there is no redemption from. No matter how much Magnus might try, no matter how much good he put back into world after that moment, he could never make up for it. No matter how many centuries went by, Magnus would always and forever be defined by that moment in which Camille had asked him to kill someone and he had, without question.  

He had never paid for it either. Justice had never caught up with him. Ragnor refused to condemn him for it because he was too blinded by his own image of Magnus to see what had really happened. The Council, which brought justice to those untouched by the mundane world, abolished him of his sins and placed all of the blame on Camille. He wasn’t striped of his title or his position in the world. He hadn’t been exhilded. He hadn’t been punished. He had walked away, completely unskaved when he was undeserving of it.

That was something that Magnus would never be able to move past. He had murdered someone in cold blood and the world had forgiven him, leaving him alone to try and find punishment for himself.

Perhaps, that's why he had stayed with Camille for years after that. Perhaps, that's why he had dealt with her cruelty time and time again because deep down, he knew that he deserved nothing more and laying here with Alexander buried in his arms, clinging to him like he was terrified of Magnus trying to move away, Magnus wondered if this was his own twisted punishment.

The world had kept rewarding him and when Magnus thought that there was nothing else that could possibly be given to him, they had presented him with his soulmate. The one person in the world that made Magnus truly understand what it was to love to someone unconditionally. The one person that Magnus cared for more than anything.

Perhaps, he was being punished after all because if Alec knew what Magnus had done, if Alec could see all of Magnus’ sin without the filter of this love he held for him, there was no way that he wouldn’t turn and run. There was no way that he would stay. There was no way that he would lay in Magnus’ arms, as he was now.

If Alec could see who Magnus really was, if he could how _rotten_ he was on the inside, then he wouldn’t kiss Magnus’ head and run his fingers through his hair, so gently, like Magnus was such a precious thing worth of that touch.

Maybe, Magnus’ punishment was being sent this angel and knowing that he in no way deserved him but being selfish enough to keep him anyway. Maybe, his punishment was feeling Alec shift in his arms and sigh against Magnus’ neck. Maybe, his punishment was Alec waking up to find tears in Magnus’ eyes. Maybe, his punishment was Alec cradling Magnus’ face and asking him so gently what was wrong. Maybe, his punishment was that when he told him, in a mess of words that barely even strung together to form a coherent thought, Alec had looked at Magnus with such pity and just held him close, as if Magnus deserved that comfort.

Magnus had lived for so long that his personal history could fill a book, multiple. He had lived for centuries. He had lived through wars and he had lived through devastation and he had _caused_ devastation. Perhaps, that's why everyone was so willing to forgive him because to them, it had been so long ago. Magnus’ mistakes had happened long before Alec was even born, before his parents were even born but that didn’t mean that Magnus was worthy of forgiveness. Time alone didn’t heal all wounds, especially one that Magnus himself caused.

The next morning, Magnus smiled and when Alec asked him if he felt okay, he nodded and said that he did. Alec didn’t bring it up again but his words from the night before echoed in Magnus’ head anyway, “That wasn’t your fault.”

It was though. Every choice that Magnus had made in his life, the good and the bad, had been his fault alone and part of Magnus had hoped that Alec would have been enraged when he heard of what Magnus had done. That maybe, he would see how horrible of a person Magnus truly was. That maybe, he would stand and leave Magnus alone to suffer. That maybe he would pull his sword from his rack in the hallway and cut Magnus’ head clean off, like he did with the demons that he fought in the street.

He hadn’t though and so, Magnus continued to carry the weight of his mistakes alone.


End file.
